A Piece Of My Heart
by ExLibris3
Summary: The year is 19981999. Jenny Shepard comes to NCIS as a new agent. Her new boss is L. Jethro Gibbs. Just what might happen when there is a certain spark between them? Jibbs
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: I decided to write a little something about when Jenny and Gibbs started working together. **__**Here's my take on their history. Will be several chapters.**_

November, 1997

Gibbs hurried up the stairs to the Director's office. He was clutching a cup of hot coffee in his hand, which was the reason why he was late for the meeting. He flew past the assistant who was sitting outside Tom Morrow's office; she knew he was expected by the Director. He gave the door a quick knock before he wrenched it open.

Two sets of eyes turned toward him when he entered. He didn't get a proper look at the other visitor until he had closed the door behind him and then turned around to lay his eyes on her. He raised one eyebrow as his eyes wandered up and down her body. She was neatly dressed in black pants and a forest green blouse. He met her eyes as he took in her features; she wasn't looking too bad. Her long red hair caught his attention when she shook it back over her shoulders. He changed his previous thought; she was beautiful.

The redheaded woman carefully eyed up the newcomer. _'Cute'_ she thought and hid a smile. His bright blue eyes pierced through her green ones, making her feel strangely exposed. She let her gaze travel over his face and his silver-grey hair. She briefly wondered who he was.

"Ah, there you are" Director Morrow seemed pleased that Gibbs had finally made it. Gibbs took his gaze from the mysterious redhead and greeted Tom Morrow.

"Yeah, sorry I'm late, Director"

"Well, at least you're here now" Tom answered and rose from his seat behind his desk. "Like I told you before, Agent Gibbs, you will be assigned a new agent" he continued and gestured toward the redheaded woman. Gibbs turned back to her.

"Special Agent Gibbs, meet Special Agent Jennifer Shepard" Tom introduced them.

Gibbs reached out his hand to greet her while he did his best to hide his surprise, he had known the Director had talked about signing him up with someone new, but he never would have guessed it would be someone like her. But now as he met her gaze over the handshake, he saw a fire burning in the green eyes of hers, and he realized she was tough.

"Jethro" he introduced himself, the corner of his mouth rose in a slight smile.

"Jenny" she replied, looking amused. She looked down at their still intertwined hands. "Can I please have my hand back, Jethro?" she asked politely while struggling to keep laughter from her voice as he wasn't late to withdraw his hand.

"I'm sure you two will find a way to get along" Tom continued "Jethro, Shepard is one of our newest agents, I trust you to take good care of her"

"I will" Gibbs assured the Director as he glanced at Jenny, who was leaning casually against the table in the middle of the office.

"So why don't you two get acquainted while waiting for further instructions?" Tom suggested and Jenny nodded for an answer. "Dismissed" he finished and sat down in his chair again.

Gibbs walked over to the door and held it open for Jenny, who grabbed the coat and bag she'd left on the table, and walked out before him.

"Thought I'd show you your desk, Jen" Gibbs said as they walked together toward the stair that would take them down to the squad room.

"I'm pretty sure I asked you to call me Jenny" she pointed out as they began to descend the staircase.

"My mistake" he replied with a smirk as he glanced at her. "So, first real day on the job, right?" he asked, trying to have a conversation with her. She nodded.

"Yes, just finished my training to become an NCIS special agent" she answered as she secretly admired the looks of her new boss. Though he was surely older than she was, he was no doubt quite attractive, she just hoped he was nice, but so far, it had gone very well, except his little mistake of calling her Jen.

"Kinda figured that" he was still smiling as he turned his head to look at her

"Sorry" she apologised.

"Don't apologise, it's a sign of weakness" Gibbs simply stated without turning to look at her. But he came to an abrupt halt when the clinking of her heels had stopped.

"What was that?" she asked suspiciously where she stood like frozen on a step. He turned around to face her.

"That was one of my rules" he explained, the tone in his voice slightly sharper than before.

"Rules? I never heard of any rules…" Jenny began, frowning. She was cut off by Gibbs smile. She stared at him, trying to get him to talk. He stared back. For several seconds their eyes were locked together, neither wanted to be the first one to look away. Jenny refused to show her new boss any sign of weakness, but she found this challenge to be extremely difficult. There was such an intensity in his gaze that she literally had to force herself to not let her gaze wander away. Gibbs was secretly amused by her stubbornness and her will to not let him intimidate her. It was obvious she was having a hard time to keep the eye contact. He tried to make his gaze even more intense, and it must have worked, because Jenny finally looked away, defeated. She cleared her throat.

"What kind of rules?" she asked again, though her voice was shaking slightly; she did a great job in remaining calm after the tough match that had just been played out between them.

"My rules" he replied "It's my job to teach them to you, to make as good an agent as possible out of you. If that's what you want?" he answered, testing just how devoted she was to become a good NCIS agent. Without looking at her, he turned around and hurried down the stair. He didn't hear any clinking from her high heels, so he assumed she'd taken him more seriously then he had thought she would. Then there came a quick series of clinking of heels, and the next second she was next to him. He came to a halt by the wall of windows. He glanced down at her shoes. Yes, the heels were as high as he remembered them.

"How the hell did you learn to walk so quickly in those heels?" he asked in disbelief. Jenny wasn't smiling as she answered with a simple word "Practise". Gibbs smiled slightly, but her expression remained serious.

"What the hell did you mean with 'if that is what I want?'. Of course I wanna be a good agent, and according to Director Morrow, you're one of the best!" she burst out angrily.

"_One _of the best?" Gibbs asked lightly, teasingly, heavy on the word 'one'. The expression on the fiery redhead's face told him this was no time to make jokes.

"I was just testing you. Wouldn't want a probie who isn't committed to the work on my hands." He stated and gestured for her to come with him. With her mouth still slightly open in surprise and fury she followed him the short walk to his office. He stopped in front of the desk next to his and reached over the computer screen to fetch something. Jenny stood waiting patiently for whatever he was doing. Shortly afterwards he straightened up, holding a dark blue jacket and cap in his hands, both with the letters NCIS on them in white. He offered them to her.

"Welcome to NCIS, special agent Shepard" he sounded quite formal as he said it, and Jenny had a hard time keeping the smile off her face. Her lips curled up in a smile.

"Thank you, special agent Gibbs" she replied as she held onto her new clothing. Gibbs smiled back and picked up the cap and pressed it down onto her head.

"Suits you, Jen" he said with a little laugh as he turned away from her and took his seat behind his desk.

"I assume I'm just gonna have to get used to being called Jen" she said lightly and tilted her head to the side as she spoke and gave him another smile.

He looked at her, her red curls hung down from underneath the cap, the sweet smile still on her lips. Yes, his first impression of her had been right; she was a beautiful, fiery redhead.

_**To be continued…**_

_**Btw, if anyone knows which number the rule "Never apologise, it's a sign of weakness" is, will you please tell me, because I'm not sure about that one! Thanks. **_

_**And thanks for reading and please review!!**_

_**Emma**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: Thanks for the reviews on the first chapter! **__**Here's chapter number two. I changed the year, so it is now 1997 instead of 98, as I had written before; I had some more time to thing about it, and thins just feels better. Please read and review! Thanks!**_

November 30, 1997

It was early morning, and Gibbs was already sitting at his desk, going through Jenny's first report for him. She wasn't too bad an agent, just she had no experience. But she was a fast learner, thank God. The rain scattered against the large windows, it was practically pouring down and the wind was not too gentle either. His eyes travelled to the clock in the corner of his computer screen, it showed 07.24. She was late. He sighed as he reached over to the phone, intending on calling her and asking where the hell she was. The ding of the elevator made him look up, and he immediately hung up.

"Looking warm today, Jen" he greeted her when she reached her desk. She gave him an evil glare as she shivered with cold. With hidden amusement he took in the sight of her; a small pool of water had began to form on the floor underneath her, her soaked coat was still dripping. Her hair and face were as wet as if she'd just stepped out of the shower.

"Thanks for noticing" she replied sarcastically, slowly beginning to unbutton the coat. Gibbs saw that the white shirt she wore underneath was just as wet, making it quite see-through. He caught a glimpse of her bra before she pulled the coat tighter around her again; she had realized her mistake just in time.

"What the hell happened to you?" Gibbs asked, secretly disappointed she had caught herself and closed her coat. He shook his head slightly, wondering what the hell he was thinking. He tried to get the image of her dressed in a see-through shirt out of his head. It was harder than he'd realized.

"Well, if you haven't noticed, it's like a monsoon out there!" she waved her hand in direction of the windows, the rain scattered against the cool glass, now harder than before.

"Yes, I did notice. That's why I took my car to work. Are you sure you checked the weather forecast last night? Or even looked out the window this morning?" he said teasingly as he leaned back in his chair, now having a much harder time in hiding his amusement from her. Jenny felt like she wanted to throw something cold and wet at him, maybe it would wipe that incredibly annoying smirk off his face. Unfortunately for her, the only wet, cold thing she had was her coat, and she was not in the mood of showing half of NCIS her bra.

"Well, your car didn't have a flat tire this morning. I had to take the bus" she explained as another shiver of cold went down her spine. She felt the goose-bumps on her arms and realized that if she didn't change her clothes soon, she'd be down with a cold.

"Last time I checked, busses have roofs to keep the rain out" he couldn't help but to point out, he had a hard time understanding how she could have gotten this soaked, she literally looked like she'd just stepped out of the shower, with clothes and all.

"Well, the walk from the bus station to work doesn't"

"There is this new invention called an umbrella"

"Thanks for reminding me" she hisses in a sarcastic tone of voice. "Problem was I couldn't find mine. Can we move on from how I got wet, to how I'll get dry?" she threw her equally wet bag down on the floor next to her desk and put her hands on her hips, impatiently waiting for Gibbs to tell her what to do next. Gibbs rose from his seat and began making his way around his desk.

"You know, you could have called me, and I would have come to pick you up" he said once he stood right in front of her. He was so close to her he could almost feel the cold radiate from her. He had to once again pull his thoughts away from what he knew was underneath, but the picture of the white shirt glued to her body, see-through to reveal her bra and teasing cleavage just wouldn't leave his brain.

Jenny shivered, perhaps not only from the cold, but from the quite unnerving vibe she was getting from her new boss. She had forced her legs to move, take a step away, but she had a hard time to get her legs to obey her brain as they were so frozen by now they had gotten stiff while she had been standing still.

"I'll... try and remember that the next time" she stuttered out once she was on a safe distance. Gibbs merely smiled, but as he saw how she was shaking, he instantly became serious about getting her warmed up quickly before she'd catch a cold.

"Come on" he said and led the way to the elevator, Jenny hurried after him and as the doors closed behind her, she asked "Where are we going?"

"Some place where you can get changed" he replied and looked at her and noticed she was frowning. "What?"

"I don't have anything to change into!" she burst out angrily and gestured widely with her hands. Frustrated she forced back the strand of long red hair that had fallen down across her face. Gibbs found that the angry sparkle in her eyes just added to his attraction to the young agent. Now he could no longer keep the smile off his face.

"What?" she snapped annoyed, but Gibbs just smiled.

* * *

"You have got to be kidding me!" Jenny hissed as they both exited the elevator together a little while later. Gibbs was smiling even wider.

"What? You look great, Jen" he teased as she reluctantly followed him into the bull pen.

"Jeez, thanks" her voice dripped with sarcasm, but at least she was dry again, and she had Gibbs to thank for that. She gratefully sank down into her chair and glanced down at the grey sweat pants and sweat shirt she was wearing. On her chest the letters NCIS was written. She was painfully aware of that she was looking nowhere as stylish as she had this morning. She had only been here for a week, but she wanted to make a good impression on her boss, and for her that involved looking presentable, being on time, and most importantly, doing a great job. Today she had failed in two of those things; first of all, she'd come in looking like crap, and she had been late. But she had a feeling her boss would only complain about one of those things, she was pretty certain her appearance was not the most important thing to him.

She was pulled from her thoughts as Gibbs slammed a file down on her desk.

"Your first report" he answered shortly to her questioning look. Jenny picked up the file and fingered nervously on it before she asked "How was it?"

"I want you to go over it again" he ordered as he returned to his own desk. She followed him with her gaze.

"What? Why?" she felt disappointed, she'd thought she'd done a good job on her first report for Gibbs. Obviously she'd been wrong.

"You forgot the spell check. Otherwise it was excellent" he replied and looked up at her, she appeared to be please with his answer.

"Thank you" she opened the file and began looking through the papers. She was beginning to feel more and more comfortable in these clothes, but made a mental note that she'd bring some extra clothes with her that she could keep at her desk in case this were to happen again.

Gibbs hadn't taken his eyes off her yet. With amazement he watched how her hair fell down over her face as she was working, without taking her gaze off the paper she was reading, she pushed the red hair back. He was please with her, he could easily tell she took this job seriously, and that was just the kind of person he wanted to work with. The fact that she was rather attractive didn't hurt, but he was slightly worried as he was aware of his weakness for fiery redheads.

Jenny suddenly looked up; she must have felt his eyes on her, because her gaze immediately fell upon him. He gave her a smile, and she smiled back before they both turned their heads away, each concentrating on their own task.

_**To be continued…**_


End file.
